To Love At All
by Kiichigo-chan
Summary: But his eyes were fixed only on her; his gaze was drawn solely to the statuesque, dusky figure, brandishing her bravery, the world's fate handed over to this unlikely group of heroines." Entry for True Colour's Alternate Pairings Contest! RyouxZakuro
1. Chapter 1

**Alright, so this is my entry for True's Alternate Pairing Contest! Wowzee, was it ever tough to write these characters. They're always so guarded with emotions, ne? I hope I did them justice, and there will be a second chapter coming soon! I just need to finish editing, but I'll post it asap. **

**Please, review and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!**

**Good luck to all the other contestants, and enjoy the story!**

_"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything,_

_and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken."_

_~ C.S. Lewis_

She could've slapped him. She honestly wanted to. But this, of all times, was not the moment to tear each other down. So what if he had just run out into the middle of the battlefield, endangering his life and possibly theirs?

Dodge, run, and strike. It was all she wanted to focus on in this crucial moment, but he just _had_ to have added the extra task of protecting a vulnerable teammate. How could he help, honestly? Even if he did transform into 'Alto', what good could that do against this chimera anima?

"Ribon Zakuro Pure!"

Purple hair flying, she lashed out at the beast as she worked her way across the battlefield.

"Watch your left, Minto!" she shouted, warning of an encroaching tentacle. Zakuro took a running start and leapt over the chimera's flailing tail to land next to Ryou.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" she hissed. "Aren't you supposed to be monitoring Ichigo's progress? And Deep Blue's?"

"Keiichiro's in charge of that for now." Ryou turned to her, eyes burning with a sort of restless helplessness. "I had to- I had to come to help you all." He gestured vaguely to the chaos before them, his usual cool demeanour in shambles in the face of this Final Battle. Surely he understood that he couldn't be of help to them, but he was past logic now. Zakuro found herself frustrated by his sudden emotional breakdown; why did their apparently fearless and carefully detached boss have to do this _now_?

"This is just to buy time until Ichigo can face Deep Blue! She ran up to the ship already; you don't need to put yourself in danger to help us sta-"

"Fuu Rai Sen!" Pai yelled as he teleported to strike a whirlwind down around Zakuro and Ryou. Grit flew into their faces, and the wind fair threw them off their feet.

"Ribon Minto Echo!" Mint shouted, forcing Pai to veer off and dodge the shot. The whirlwind ceased, mercifully, and Zakuro tried to dissuade the oncoming chimera with her whip.  
Fighting two aliens and their toughest monster at the same time was exhausting.

_Please hurry, Ichigo…_

"Get out of here, Ryou," she warned. "Just throw us a new weapon if you have one, and find a safe place to hide." Even without her focus exclusively on the blonde boy, she could feel his desperation.

Ryou grabbed a fistful of his hair in frustration, but began to back away from the battlefield.

"Damn it, I can't- I can't do anything else for you," he apologized, hands thrown overhead in a vain attempt to shield himself from a shower of rubble. Zakuro could only pray that by now he had realized how much danger he was putting himself and the others in; perhaps the vivid reality of battle had been enough to jolt him out of his lapse in judgement. "I'm so-"

In her peripheral vision, Zakuro saw Tart teleport subtly behind Ryou. What was he-? It took the girl a moment to register the threatening action, but the conclusion hit her like lightning. He was about to throw his click-clacks at point-blank range, at Ryou's neck.

"Ryou!" She acted fast, shoving him roughly onto the pavement, onto safety. She raised the hilt of her whip to deflect the spinning spheres but somehow the little brat had managed to put a backspin on the thing.

There was a sickening crunch as the weighted wires wrapped around her torso, and Zakuro fell, still retaining a small measure of grace even in her agony. With impact came the sudden inability to breathe. Her chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a blunt knife, like it would cave in entirely, bones broken if not splintered. Bruises began to bloom already, red welts where the wires had dug into flesh.

The two red metal balls fell away and rolled across the paving stones.

Clenching her teeth and willing her eyes to focus, she looked up and into Ryou's face, only a few feet away now, and saw through the streaks of grime something akin to despair.

"Zakuro-san, your ribs- broken?"

She attempted to speak, but could only nod, emitting a laboured gasp for breath.

"Onee-sama!" cried Mint, several paces away now, eyes flashing with shock and anger. Turning on Tart, she raised her bow and loosed, all in the same movement. Her rash shot flew offside, but even so the young alien let out a cry and spiralled down from the sky to land in a most unnatural position on a pile of rubble.

Zakuro struggled to sit up. When had it come to this? Fighting, hurting, killing children? God forbid, not killing. There was still time. There had to be.

_Hurry, Ichigo_…

"Pudding needs help, na no da!" came the small Mew's desperate cry from across the battlefield. Zakuro's eyes slid back into focus once more to see an opening- possibly all she would get. The chimera's feet had been fixed to the crumbled pavestones with the little Mew's Pudding Ring, but its tail had come free and had angrily swatted the girl across the courtyard. Pudding skidded across the pavement, panting. Zakuro gritted her teeth, holding back… what? Anger? Sadness? She had always held back her emotions so expertly, letting nothing touch her. Now, bruised and broken along with her friends, something inside had shifted, and the sense of invincibility had shattered like the brittle dream it had been.

With sheer force of will, she rose to her feet, clasping her arms around her torso as if she were trying to keep herself from falling apart. Ryou had scrambled back to shelter behind a torn-up slab of pavement, and Zakuro was sure that he was still tearing his hair out. But just because he cared about them didn't give him an excuse to throw caution to the winds.

She took a step.

He… truly did care about them, didn't he?

"Mint…" she gasped, "Lettuce… on my signal!" Zakuro yelled, swaying slightly, but breaking into a halting run. She tried to focus. She needed to get to the optimum angle and- yes, there was her opening. As she jumped to wrap her whip around the neck of the anima, the one thing she felt more acutely than the pain was Ryou's gaze fixated on her.

Of course he was watching her. In a way, this battle was his too. The Mews were his creation, his hope- the only hope for the world. And now, she was sure; he did care about them all.

But his eyes were fixed only on her; his gaze was drawn solely to the statuesque, dusky figure, brandishing her bravery, the world's fate handed over to this unlikely group of heroines.

The whip tightened around the chimera's neck, and blood began to spurt from the wounds.

"Ribon Minto Echo!"

"Ribon Lettuce Rush!"

An explosion of light, then nothing. Nothing but Pai floating in the air, just out of reach, and the Mews collapsing with exhaustion onto the empty courtyard.

_Ichigo…_

"Ichigo," said Ryou tiredly, emerging from his cover several paces behind her and echoing Zakuro's thoughts, "is confronting Deep Blue as we speak. The power readings up there were enough to crash our laptops, so all we can do now is… hope."

The girl pushed sweaty locks of violet hair out of her eyes and surveyed the battlefield. She had never seen a sight that looked less like hope. The torn-up ground, the looming ship shifting portentously against the dim sky, and the battered people that guarded it all held an air of anxiety, of expectation. Their fates were out of their hands now.

Clutching her chest once again, the pain redoubled, Zakuro turned to face Ryou, who had picked his way through the rubble to check on Mint and Pudding. The fight had completely expended everyone's energy, and the two girls swayed where they stood before collapsing to the ground. Ryou helped them get into comfortable positions, braced against a slanting rock, and though her eyes drifted in and out of focus, Zakuro could see his young face aged a hundred years with regret and worry. He cared so much. He cared enough to want to be here even though- a stabbing pain tore through Zakuro's chest as she leant her weight against a stone wall- even though he couldn't do anything.

Pai floated slowly down to the ground, seeming to be both in shock and mildly injured. So Mint's arrow had grazed him.

"Humans are such… marvellous creatures," he mumbled disbelievingly as he landed near where Tart lay, with a fatigued and anxious Lettuce giving up all pretence of aggression as she checked for a pulse. Little could be heard of Pai and Lettuce's conversation, except for a hushed, "Is he breathing?" "Yes." They continued to talk for a time after that, with an emotional intensity that could be felt even from where the violet-haired girl lay sprawled against a rock.

She didn't understand everything after all, it seemed. How could some people be so willing to lay their safety, their heart out on the line for another? It hurt too much. It always ended up hurting too much.

Ryou made his way through the debris to slip down next to Zakuro, checking if she was indeed still breathing.

"Zakuro-san, are you alright?"

"Aren't you… a bit more worried about your little strawberry right now?" she asked the blonde boy quietly.

"God, yes." Zakuro almost smiled at that; through all the teasing and quarrels he had still cared for Ichigo all along. "But there's nothing we can do for her now. Not unless you're up for doing a power extension."

"I don't... think any of us could handle that," she said, voice tinted with frustration and pain. Ryou's eyes saddened.

"I know." Suddenly, his expression grew urgent and curious, and Zakuro anticipated the next question with a confused heart.

"Why did you save me?" Ryou wanted to know, expression rapt.

"Why do you think? You could have died."

"Yes, but my survival isn't crucial to this battle. You could have carried on without me, but if you had died, then the rest of the girls…" he trailed off, not ready to think about other possible outcomes this conflict could bring.

"You're wrong," Zakuro replied simply. "You've always been the heart of this battle. Or at least the head, anyway." She braced herself, and took a deep breath. "We're fighting for you, and the world we love. It's your battle too."

The young man shifted his weight underneath him, and gave a slow nod to Zakuro. He didn't seem to have anything to say, but his expression was grateful.

"Ryou?" the lilac-haired girl asked after a pause.

"Yeah?" he responded, lifting his head from clenched hands.

"Why have you always… made it so hard for us?"

"What?"

"Everyday, you'd… ow… tease us and pick at our work and put us down, then build us up, and tear us down again. Especially with Ichigo. Yet, you care about us." It was a statement, not a question. "I don't… understand you."

Ryou met her eyes steadily, though his face was filled with sorrow and an overwhelming sense of knowing too much.

"I just wanted to prepare you for times like this."

Zakuro was surprised by his answer. Something in his eyes surprised her too; in this moment of uncertainty and peril, she was unable to focus anywhere but on those startlingly sapphire orbs. She made a resolution that if she survived this, she would tell him how beautiful his eyes were.

"I'm an idiot. I know that better than anyone." She could feel the frustration overwhelming him again, and a strange sense of softening in her own heart. "I'm a school-age genius, but I couldn't find a better way to protect Earth than completely taking over the lives of five innocent, normal girls."

Zakuro's indigo eyes began to fill with tears, drawn up from a life of suppressing everything she had ever felt for fear it would own her. She had found that water was weakness, and had always held it back. Tears were only for those who weren't strong enough to move on.

She regarded Mint, Pudding and the others, spent and broken, lying across the courtyard. Today had somehow broken the dam and made it harder than it had ever been to keep these emotions inside her battered chest. Any sense of pride once felt had been scoured in these last hours.

"I needed to do anything I could to give you a thicker skin, make you stronger, for this. How could you have known what was coming?"

But this young man had somehow managed to focus on saving the world, and retain his humanity all at once.

The tears spilled over, cold and clear, like they were newly melted from an icy heart.

"Zakuro, what's wrong?" Ryou asked, distress evident on his face.

"Y-You care so much for us," she answered almost inaudibly, breath coming short between the pulsing pain and the sobs.

Ryou watched as the young woman's carefully preserved pride and grace gave way to an honest, exhausted sincerity. He took her hand then, acting on impulse yet still apprehensive of rejection. It was a show of strength and understanding. And weakness. Because truly, he needed it as much as she did just then. One look at her beautiful face, streaked with tears and grime, scrambled his thoughts as he reached for what he had wanted to say ever since he had brought these girls to the fight.

"I'm sorry, Zakuro. I-I…" he broke off.

She understood, though.

"Thank you, Ryou. For everything you've done."

"It's not over yet," he whispered, his gaze drawn up to the ominous silhouette of Deep Blue's ship, but pulled back even more quickly to her face.

With held hands and locked eyes, they waited for the flash of light that would decide their fate- annihilation, or healing.

_Please, let it be Mew Aqua…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey everyone! Yes, here it is- Chapter Two. May I just say that this is my first ever multi-chaptered fic? :D Since True Colours (very graciously, I might add) extended the deadline to June 28, this may be a bit of an early-bird entry... ah well. Frankly, I'm surprised I even got it up this quickly. I've been insanely busy, but I really can't complain because we're all sort of going through it, right? *sighs* Exams... good times.**

**Constructive criticism welcomed with open arms and sugar cookies!**

**Again, good luck to all the other contestants! ~**

* * *

Today, she walked to work. The idea had seemed more appealing to her ever since the Battle, since the trees and flowers had sprung up in new and odd places and the air seemed deliciously fresh every morning. Strange, the things that stood out to her now. Wasn't she missing an interview for this? Or something? Who knew? There could always be another one, anyway. But this morning was more real and full than any of the photos, or the fashion shows had ever made her feel. These feelings... maybe that was why she had kept coming to work here.

Upon arriving at the Café, she was nearly knocked over as Pudding flew by on roller blades and seized her around the waist as a human brake.

"Ah, Pudding, gently. My ribs are still healing up."

"Sorry, 'nee-sama!" the blonde girl cried happily, not looking overly apologetic, but still happy to see her.

"Nice roller blades," the model said, voice coloured with amusement.

"Thanks, na no da! Pudding's been practicing all morning, and she's only broken seven-"

Zakuro cut her off, sensing a lengthy, albeit interesting, story coming on.

"Sorry, Pudding, but have you seen Ryou around?"

"Oh, he's upstairs on the balcony, na no da!"

"Thanks, Pudding," Zakuro said, and she headed towards the stairs at the back of the building.

"Hey Ichigo, wanna see my new tr-" The sound of smashing dishware rang through the café. Fortunately, there weren't any customers yet present to witness the display of perpetual craziness this café brought with the same enthusiasm each day.

"Ah! Pudding, that's the eighth one this morning!" the exasperated redhead cried, looking as flustered as ever. Yet, if broken plates were the most they had to worry about now, things had to be looking up.

Zakuro swept up the stairs, leaving the conversation behind her, and growing even more eager- for what? She couldn't explain it, but something had changed in her. The battle had left her broken, but she had been put back together in a way that made more sense. And the person who had helped to form this new, feeling heart… Well, she wanted to at least be with him, even if she wasn't sure exactly what he meant to her.

Every morning since the Battle, before work, she had come to visit Ryou. She hadn't said much and neither had he, but there was a deeper understanding between them now. She had mostly just let him work in silence, and hadn't stayed long, but had more often than not encouraged him to take a break for a while. God knew, he worked too hard. He had helped save the world, but still he felt compelled to study and analyze and over-think everything. Yet, Zakuro knew that he was doing what he loved, and it wasn't a burden to him now. Today he was on the balcony instead of the dim, dank basement; that had to be a positive sign, right?

She emerged onto the terrace and spotted him immediately, sitting with a laptop. The young woman gave an inaudible sigh.

He heard her approach and gave a smirk, closing the screen halfway and setting the computer aside.

"Hello, Zakuro," he greeted.

"Hello, Ryou," she replied. "Nice day to sit outside, hm?" she added with a little emphasis on _outside_. He didn't miss the hint, and responded in the same candid and puzzling manner as he always did.

"I know you think it's a waste of time for me to always be fiddling away on the computers downstairs, but it's important work. Even now that you Mews have done your job."

She shook her hair slightly and sat down next to him. "I know it's important to you."

He gazed at her, ever inscrutable, and she felt her heart jump a little. Yes, this was what she came for. To sort out these feelings, to spend more time with the man whose piercing eyes seemed to see everything about her more clearly than she ever could.

"And you… have things that are important to you too, right?" he probed, more open than usual this morning.

Zakuro slid her gaze out to the treetops of the park. Some things she knew would be of greater importance to her now -such as her friends, like Minto and Lettuce, who were actually talking amicably on their way up the path, and Pudding and Ichigo, whose argument still drifted up through an open window- but some she was no longer sure of.

"You have a great career that you're in the midst of. Now that the Mew Project is over, you can focus on it."

She tilted her face to view him through her lashes, and she saw that this was both a statement and a question. He wanted to know, and he wanted her to know.

"Ryou, I think I might- I might quit." Zakuro surprised herself with this bold disclosure, but as often is with self-revelation, it made more sense when the words rang out instead of floating unconnected in her mind.

"Really?" he asked, unperturbed.

"Yes. Different things are important to me now. I want to make a difference in the world, but modeling, dancing, singing… all feel a bit emptier to me now. As if there's somewhere else I'd rather be." She met his eyes, and attempted to gauge his reaction to her intrepid, open words. They hadn't been this honest since that dusky evening, over a month ago. To tell the truth, she hadn't been this honest with anyone for a long time. She had always hidden behind cryptic words, and this new sincerity felt like healing rain on a dusty battlefield.

Ryou stretched lazily, sun glinting off his tousled hair. He smiled, genuine but still snarky as always, and brushed a lock of hair out of Zakuro's face.

"So, what will you do?" he asked. He was almost unfazed by this; could it have been that he had sensed her restlessness? He at least had been witness to the recent change in her.

"I don't know. I've always been smart, so I'll find something."

"You will." They sat in silence for a moment.

With a trademark half-smile, Ryou leaned in slightly and asked, "Tell me, are you any good at bio-quantum physics?"

Zakuro considered this and replied, "Well, I did have a private tutor for seven years." And she had been observing some of his work over the course of the Mew Project; she had wanted to know what she had been involved in, but over time she had come to find the work rather… intriguing.

"So…?"

"Naturally, I excelled at it." She may have been humbled in the past, but there was no way to separate her from her self-confidence. Her future, recently turned again so hazy, was beginning to clear. Zakuro found herself hoping that Ryou, somehow, would be a part of it.

"Hm… perhaps you'd consider an apprenticeship, then? How do you feel about studying endangered species?"

Zakuro brought her gaze level with his and gave a true smile. "I think that would be… very interesting."

His face was disconcertingly close now- why did she get the feeling that this was somehow more than a business proposal? Her thoughts were tangled and her heart beat faster for those ice blue eyes-

"Did I ever tell you," she said quietly, half oblivious to her own words, "how much I love your eyes?"

Ryou's lips parted, and she saw the surprising tenderness in those brilliant blue orbs before her eyelids fluttered shut. He leant in to kiss her; it was surprising, unhurried, and understanding at all once. Zakuro brought her fingers up to his silky hair, and in the clear morning light, she decided that this made more sense than ever.


End file.
